The State Department Slapped Down Kiev’s Demand For The US To Sanction India
The US made fools out of Kiev’s top foreign policy officials by never informing them of this behind-the-scenes arrangement to have India serve as the middleman for facilitating the West’s continued import of Russian oil, albeit indirectly and now for a premium, ergo why they publicly made their ridiculous anti-Indian sanctions demands only to humiliatingly be slapped down by the State Department as a result.
Head of the Ukrainian Rada’s Committee on Foreign Policy Alexander Merezhko recently demanded that the US sanction India for its purchase of Russian oil, which conforms with the spirit of Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba’s hyperbolic criticism of that South Asian state in early December. Both senior figures were just slapped down by the State Department though in a single statement by Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Karen Donfried.
She curtly declared in response to a question about Merezhko’s demand that “I want to be clear, we are not looking to sanction India.” Her policy clarification came just days after Bloomberg highlighted the indispensable role that India nowadays plays in the global energy market by virtue of it serving as the middleman for facilitating the Russian-Western oil trade amidst the latter’s unilateral sanctions. Had Delhi not done so, then the US-led West’s Golden Billion wouldn’t be able to meet its relevant needs.
Put differently, India’s proud defiance of that de facto New Cold War bloc’s hitherto unprecedented pressure upon it to sanction Russia inadvertently ended up serving the West’s own interests after some time by creating irreplaceable relief from their own sanctions’ counterproductive consequences. Considering this, there was never any realistic chance that the US or its European vassals would ever sanction India since doing so could lead to the collapse of their economies, especially the EU’s.
In hindsight, the only reason why some of Kiev’s top officials would make their ridiculous anti-India sanctions demand of the US is because they were left out of the loop about it using Delhi as its middleman for facilitating the West’s continued imports of Russian oil. The “politically inconvenient” reality is that the West’s anti-Russian sanctions failed exactly as the New York Times recently admitted, so much so that this bloc is still importing Russian oil, albeit indirectly via India and now for a premium.
The US therefore made fools out of Kiev’s top foreign policy officials by never informing them of this behind-the-scenes arrangement, ergo why they publicly made their ridiculous anti-Indian sanctions demands only to humiliatingly be slapped down by the State Department as a result. If Ukraine had any strategic sense, it would begin wondering what other ways the US is working behind its back, especially since this incident proves that the precedent for doing so veritably exists and likely goes even further.